


Goth Boy's Clique (Come Over When You're Sober Part 1)

by fullfrontal420



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Abandonment, Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Punk, Alternate Universe - Werewolves Are Known, Crackpot Coran, Drug Dealing, Emo Keith (Voltron), F/F, F/M, Homelessness, M/M, Raves, Recreational Drug Use, Sunday Church Going Shiro, Supernatural Elements, issa soap opera, there's a lot to unpack
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-23
Updated: 2018-01-23
Packaged: 2019-03-08 11:44:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,316
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13457556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fullfrontal420/pseuds/fullfrontal420
Summary: Pidge breezed passed her dumbstruck friends, and hardly stopped as she spoke to him for the first time in 800 days, “Wow, Keith you should have told us you skipped town for a lucrative job opportunity at Hot Topic, we would have understood.”// A druggie high school AU with some supernatural twists.





	Goth Boy's Clique (Come Over When You're Sober Part 1)

**Author's Note:**

> I had a crisis after Lil Peep died and went back to my fangirl roots. This is kind of the result. 
> 
> An Extended Trigger Warning: 
> 
> \- This story glamorizes and romanticizes drugs.  
> \- This story deals with homelessness, parent abandonment, depression, and poverty but it's actually lighthearted. It's kind of a darker slice of life?  
> \- Straight people warning, there are a few straight couples.  
> \- Please tell me if I should add tags, warnings, or something else. Feel free to leave your criticisms in the comment section.  
> \- I added a glossary of slang. I know shit's called different things in different places/for esl peeps/some of y'all probably don't do drugs and... of course... you shouldn't.

_The thing about living in this time period is that there isn’t some secret chosen one to hunt the supernatural, it’s not a government secret, some grand magical conspiracy that goes all the way to the White House.  It’s also not a revolution or a war, that all happened a while ago, now it’s just trying to live in harmony with a bunch of different people.  If (white) humans completely lost it when they realized that there are varying levels of melatonin in populations, and vastly different cultures around the world, you can image what happened once there was actually a biological difference between human populations.  We didn’t even have equal rights for women, there was no paid maternity leave when it became necessary to legally give paid full moon leave for werewolves._

 

_I mean, there’s a whole debate as to whether we are the same species because our phenological differences are super varying, but there isn’t “reproductive isolation” I mean, like, technically, if we can all reproduce fertile offspring,_

 

“Lance, I’m gonna stop you right there because I think I know where this is going and if I’m being honest, I just don’t think we’re close enough for you to share with me the rest of that journal entry.”  

 

“Pidge, no, I’m serious I think this is gold.  I’m putting it on the _Quintessant’s_ blog.  And by the way I completely resent that, we have been friends for over a decade, we live a block apart.”  

 

The Quintessant was the high school newspaper, the senior editor misguidedly gave Lance the responsibility of running the newspaper’s blog.  Well, Lance badgered them and after a little over a year they gave in and gave him the position of _online_ columnist.  Basically, he was allowed to write a few blog posts per semester because no one read the blog, so no one wanted the job, and then he became the only contributor so by default, Lance bagged himself the role of head of social media at the Quintessant.  

 

“Bro, you know we love you.  And, like, everyone at school loves you, too, but I think it’s a bad idea to maybe write about this topic for the whole school.  It’s not really school appropriate.”  

 

Hunk was always gifted at softening a blow.  

 

“That’s what makes it so great!  There’s political intrigue, it pushes the boundaries of what we’re allowed to talk about ever since integration.  A hundred years of peace but politico-legal tensions between various supernatural beings?”  

 

“Oh thank _God_ .”  Pidge interrupted his speech, “I thought that was going in a _way_ different direction.”  

 

“What?  I do not know to what you are referring to, Pidge, this is a paper about political racial tensions, and political racial tensions, alone.”  

 

“Buddy, you couldn’t even inflect _once_?”  

 

“Lance, I’m gonna tell you what Hunk here is too nice to tell you, this is clearly a projection about the whole _you know_ debacle, you’ve clearly been losing it for the past month which is cool, it happens, but as your friends it’s our job to make sure you don’t publicly humiliate yourself in the process.  In this case, it means stopping you from philosophizing about hybrids in public because it makes you sound like a perv.”  

 

The “you’ve got me there” didn’t need to be said.  Lance absolutely had been losing it since Keith came back to town.  

 

Long story short is that they’d been childhood friends.  Best friends.  Like, sure, Hunk and Pidge were also in their tight knit crew but he and Keith had always been closest.  They understood each other and well, probably most important for elementary school kids, they lived on the same cul de sac.  So, when Keith’s parents checked out, as they often did, Keith would sneak into Lance’s house, well, compound really, since it wasn’t just the McClain’s but the entire extended McClain-Sanchez clan that lived in the lot.  

 

When Keith left after their second year of middle school it was sad for all of them.  Keith was their best friend, he was quieter and intellectual, like Pidge, and knew how to subdue a hyperactive Lance, and his kind of abandoned but heavily disciplined nature was something Hunk’s inner mother hen ate right up.  He completed and balanced the entire clique and they were devastated when he left.  Keith was also super dedicated to his whole martial arts thing, (he’d been obsessed since the third grade, apparently when they watched the Karate Kid it stuck with him or something), and what’s more is that he loved them, like, there had been a few memorable times when he actually told them this _outloud_.  

 

What was so weird about the Koganes moving is that there was never an explanation, much less some warning.  Just one day the whole family was seen speeding out of the driveway, not much packed, just what fit in the car.  

 

A few months later, the three saw his older sister in the school office.  They didn’t initially recognize her because her hair was bleached and she wore way more makeup than she used to, and had a few piercings, too.  Lance was in the front using the phone to ask his mom to pick him up because he fell pretty hard in gym and the coach was fussing about concussions.  He’s kind of an eavesdropper, sue him, but he heard her asking for her and Keith’s transcripts for transfer.  They gave her a hard time because she needed some parent signatures but she charmed her way into getting the documents she needed.  

 

Hunk and Pidge were, obviously, designated to help Lance to the nurse’s and as soon as she finished with the receptionist, they all pounced on her demanding about Keith.  Blair did her classic pretending she didn’t know English routine, which honestly just made it all the more obvious that it was her because it was her damn signature, patented move, but once she out ran them to the parking lot, they didn’t risk following her.  Hunk was running for class council so he “couldn’t afford a truancy detention”.  Lance was mad at him for a whole week.   

 

But now Keith was back.  It had been complete radio silence since he’s left, too, which hurt.  He never had a phone, which wasn’t so weird in elementary school, not every kid had one, not every kid could afford one, and Keith was a pretty low maintenance non-materialistic kind of kid.   Once the rest of them got a cell phone, around six grade, he told them he didn’t want one  spouting about some conspiracy theory about the government and aliens.  And truthfully, that all checked out, not the conspiracy, but the fact that Keith full heartedly believed one so much he didn’t even have a phone.  

 

There was always a few social media sites but they were bare boned, clearly orchestrated by his sister, and when they messaged him he would answer like two months later apologizing because he never really used the sites, and then not respond to any of the burning questions they had like _Where the hell are you?_ _Are you okay?_  And _Please tell us what’s going on we love you and want to make sure you’re safe._

 

So imagine their surprise when they walked in the first day of sophomore year and spotted Keith at his locker, shoving some books from his messenger bag.  The three of them grew up with this kid, saw him every day for a decade and hardly recognized him.  Like his sister, it seems, Keith was going through some kind of… phase?  An emo phase, really.  He was emo.  The mullet was still there, but even longer and now in a ponytail.  He was as tall as Lance, in dark ripped up clothes and his stupid denim jacket had pins and buttons on it, and there were piercings everywhere.  The nose (four times, somehow), the shaved eyebrow with the double piercings, a lip ring, his ears looked like a clearance Claire’s rack, and right on top of one of those ears was a neatly placed cigarette.  

 

Lance dealt with his grief with wallowing and introspection, Hunk was just so nice and understanding, and Pidge was pissed.  She had to deal with her loud, way too social, annoying friends because her buffer ghosted them for two and a half years.  She loved that kid and she was pissed to see him again.  

 

Pidge breezed passed her dumbstruck friends, and hardly stopped as she spoke to him for the first time in 800 days, “Wow, Keith you should have told us you skipped town for a lucrative job opportunity at Hot Topic, we would have understood.”  

 

She didn’t wait for a response, she just walked to class.  Keith looked like a deer in headlights as he noticed Pidge, then looked to the ever awkward Lance and Hunk who took a way-too-long minute to get with the program and follow Pidge to homeroom.  

 

They didn’t say anything and neither did Keith, and they pretended to not hear the locker slam with way more force than was necessary, or quite frankly normal.  

 

When the three of them convened at lunch time that day they very much did not talk about it, and they kind of never did.  

* * *

 

Lance didn't end up writing that blog post.  Hybrids were always fetishized and that's not fair, you know? 

 

* * *

 

It was now a month into school and the situation wasn’t any less tense.  If anything, the way that they were dealing with things was worse on all accounts.  Hunk was in a baking frenzy with the front of a part of his ever important role as student council's community representative.  Sure, he was in charge of the clubs and sports organizing bake sales and other charity shenanigans, but he was not actually expected to be making fifteen dozen bags of baked goods each week, it was definitely overkill.  His friends didn’t say anything about it because he had pretty much single handedly made ten thousand bucks for the grade’s activity fund and now they were planning an end of year retreat.  

This was the healthiest of the group’s coping mechanisms.  

Pidge took to smoking weed and freaking out online about complex conspiracy theories, she currently was planning a weekend trip to Mount Shasta because “she just has to know everything.”  She was still top of the class and doing all kinds of side projects for her programming thing with her dad and brother, but she wasn’t involved and didn’t dedicate herself to anything like Hunk.  She wasn’t on the robotics team or mathletes like last year, she just works as a consultant, shows up to a few of their meetings to wreak havoc, leaves so she doesn’t have to deal with any of the consequences, then shows up a few weeks later to do it all over again.  

Lance smokes sometime with her but he’s clearly way more lost than any of them.  He doesn’t have as many friends as them, either.  He has, well, them, and Hunk is friends with literally everyone on campus, from the janitorial crew to the crew team so by association he was friends with lot of people, but not actual friends you spend time with, just those lonely kinds of proxy friends.  He lifeguards as he always has, and there’s also his newspaper thing which was good for him, but he’s been even more distant with his family, his grades were getting lousy (not actual lousy but lousy considering his genius geek friends) and while he had spent freshman year bouncing back from all kinds of rejections, the football team, the baseball team, the chess club, the debate team, he failed his driver’s permit test last week and totally freaked out.  

Hunk consoled him telling him he should have taken a drivers ed class, that it wasn’t all intuitive, he’d get it next time, but it was just weird that he had to do it at all.  Lance was truly gifted at the art of losing, he could bounce back like no other, completely brush that dirt off his shoulder and soldier on to the next rejection but this year, well, probably since Keith, he’s hit a hard limit on rejections.  

And speaking of rejections, it was just salt in the wound that it didn’t feel like Keith was going through any kind of grief like the rest of them were.  He wasn’t doing any martial arts, Lance checked with all the sports teams at the schools, then every single gym in the surrounding area, but he was always hanging out with the cool, older kids, all of whom the three idolized.  To be fair, the entire campus idolized the group Keith hung out with.  

 

There was Shiro who was a real life hero.  Captain of the football team, junior ROTC, Dean’s List kid, teaches self defense voluntarily on the weekends, one time he performed CPR on the priest’s daughter after she collapsed in sunday school and saved her life so at worst, people think he’s a local hero and at best an honest-to-god-messenger-of-god-angel.  He also has a prosthetic arm so everyone fucks with that because robots are fascinating to everyone indiscriminately.  People theorize he’s some kind of mutant because he’s literally perfect, but so far as his medical record shows he’s just human and metal.  

Then there’s Allura.  Everyone fucks with Allura.  She’s friends with everyone but not in the annoying way where she’s a shitty friend to like lots of people.  No, she’s an actual loyal friend to the entire student body.  Well, every girl on campus, and mostly everyone else, just a few guys don’t like her.  There was this thing a few years back in her sophomore year, she found out that these three girls were getting played by this one douche canoe on the baseball team.  She found out, told the girls, then his mom, gave them access to his locker and car to completely trash, and took the fall for it when the head of school found out.  And so of course, now she’s a legend.  Being so powerful of course there’s a group of insufferable men on campus who don’t like her, but she’s an entrancing-based witch, her literal name is Allura, so they hate her but also are hopelessly in love with her, which makes her all the more a legend.  

 

Lest we forget his dear older sister Blair.  Like Keith, Blair is a werewolf, but a grand total of four people know that.  Blair is a total enigma and it’s practically a kink for her how much people _don’t_ know about her.  She says weird shit all the time, and she unsurprisingly, also always gets in trouble.  Teachers hate her, she’s made a few of them cry, but the administrative assistance kind of like her because she’s in the office so much and she “makes things interesting”.  She’s a genius but shows up to school twice a week at most.  She somehow knows everything, she has street cred and book smarts but she has no charisma and takes no hints.  No one's sure if she's insane or just a compulsive rebel.  

She lets virtually no one know anything personal or private about her, one time someone asked her if the address on his screen was right to ship something to her house (a gift?  The details of the rumor aren’t clear, it goes anywhere from a flower arrangement to a truck of coke) well she threw the phone in a trash can then lit the trashcan on fire.  She got suspended for that.  

She also tackled the dean at her middle school graduation because he was going to call her name to get her diploma and she decided last minute she didn’t want a stadium of people to know her last name.  That was pretty glorious because she grabbed her diploma when she could and left.  They technically couldn’t give her a suspension or detention for that since she had graduated so there was a whole debate at the school district's pta and administrative meetings.  

No one knew a thing about her personal life except this: Keith was her little brother, and if you hurt him, she’d kill you.  And she’d probably get away with it.  This loyalty apparently overcame the whole teenagers think they're too cool for their younger sibling phenomenon because she didn't mind bringing Keith along to whatever she was doing now that they went to the same school.  

They were the three most notorious seniors at the school, but they were their own clique of best friends, another random but perfectly  balanced clique.  Of course, the clique extended to other friends.  Keith was the most recent addition to their group, but there were lots of others.  They all hung out at this art cafe that’s almost certainly a drug front and the guy who runs it is this crackpot old ginger dude named Coran who is never sober and always entertaining.  Nyma and Rollo are trash and there’s open animosity between them sometimes, but they throw great parties and when there’s alcohol they usually can all get along.  There’s Thace, some older guy Blair brings around sometimes, not a boyfriend, perhaps her dealer, perhaps a business partner, his relationship to the group isn’t clear and he isn’t in high school so it’s weird, but they’re seniors so it’s not that weird.  Shiro and Matt are best friends so he always has an open invitation to whatever they’re doing but he’s pretty introverted and things have been kind of weird with Pidge being mad about Keith so he now definitely doesn’t hang out as much with them. 

There’s this popular clique they associate with too, this group was just where all the rich kids clumped together.  As a concept, the idea of associating with rich popular kids was nauseating to all three of them, but they are Blair’s best customers, and Allura and Shiro are nice and understanding enough to know that she needs the money.  The last year where she wasn’t at school, Allura and Shiro remained friends with them so it kind of solidified that relationship.  

And look, Lotor is like a little prince some days, but that’s also kind of what makes him great because roasting the ever loving shit out of him is as much an art as it is a hobby.  Acxa’s always barred out but she buys her xan full price and always tips twenty percent.  Ezor’s a coke run and clinically insane, talks a mile a minute, and does not shut up about her Pixie ancestry, but she’s hot and a gymnast and she always knows where these killer raves are so now she’s like rave family.  Zethrid’s part giant so everyone thinks she’s awesome, obviously.  What’s not cool about an eight foot tall girl?  

 

Most lunches they sit in the parking lot.  Shiro has a pickup so they oftentimes will sit in the bed, Shiro, Allura, and Blair, along with an interchanging number of other random people depending on the who’s around and who fits in the bed.  Today Keith was with them, as he had every day since enrolling last month, and shockingly Rolo was with them.  Nyma was in detention, so she wasn’t there.  They, like every other day of lunch they’d had in high school, were smoking.  Well, Blair and Rolo are chain smoking, Allura only smokes weed, Shiro goes to church every week and Keith has started picking up chain smoking but he knows Blair doesn’t like it when he does it.  He’s mostly fucking around with the lighters.  

 

“You’re fucking wasting the lighter fluid, quit it.”  

 

“Fuck off Rolo, it’s a crack lighter, you don’t even like those.”  

 

“What the hell is a crack lighter?”  Allura laughs at that, she always thinks it’s hilarious when Shiro doesn’t know something he absolutely should considering who his friends are.  

 

“You know, a crack lighter.”  Blair unhelpfully supplies.  

 

“It’s the see through kind, it’s used for crack cause like you can adjust the flame.  You can make the flame super low so crackheads spend less on lighters and more on, well, crack.”  Keith adds.  

 

“Holy shit he actually talks.”  

 

“Rolo this is why we don’t fucking invite you places, leave him alone.”  

 

“I’m just playing with him.”  Rolo punches Keith’s arm, “You know I’m just messing with you kid, right?”  

 

“You sound like you’re eighty years old, he’s only two years younger than us, right Keith?”  Allura asks.  

 

“Yeah, I turn sixteen in the summer.”  

 

“He’s a cancer.  It’s why he’s so quiet.”  Allura always comes in clutch with the birth chart, it’s all but her witch birthright.  

 

“Alright, stop trying to murder me with your glare, B, Keith, I’m sorry.  Look I’ll make a peace offering.  Me and Nyma are throwing together a little something this Saturday, you wanna come?  Introduce you to some people since you’re kinda new to school?”  

 

“You know we can’t go Saturday, me and Allura have literally been talking about nothing else besides the pixie rave it’s Saturday.”  

 

“Oh shit, well come after.”  

 

“It’s not really that kind of thing cause like it starts at 11 and like it goes til morning, like it’s a full on activity for the whole night.  I’d say we could stop by on the way but like, knowing us it’s gonna take us a few hours to get ready”  Allura responds.  

 

“Fuck okay, no I know a fuck ton of people who’re going maybe I’ll do it Friday.”  

 

“You could make it a dayger.”  Shiro half jokes.  

 

“Ignore him, he just learned the word yesterday.”  Blair says before Rollo could say something stupid like agree.  

 

“You live in a duplex, there’s a family below you how do you even get away with throwing all your loud ass functions?”  Allura asks.  

 

“I’ve given the parents a few gifts here and there.”  

 

“Gifts?”  

 

“Oh, you mean the Thompsons?  I did that run with you didn’t I?  The wife’s a total crackhead, I don’t even know what the husband is he’s like scary looking.  Those poor kids.”  

 

“You were on the drug run with them, Blair?”  Shiro is still just trying to flaunt his new vocabulary word.  

 

“Yes, Shiro, a drug run.  It’s like when you run around with weights on your ankles only it’s filled with crack and you’re not so much running as you are fulfilling the holy covenant with god by loving thy neighbor.”  

 

“A direct translation to Shiro’s language.”  Keith jokes.  

 

“Now _that_ should be a thing.”  Blair agrees, ruffling his hair out of his ponytail.  

 

* * *

 

Friday night Hunk and Pidge swoop Lance from his depression nap and make him go out.  They end up at Lotor’s house.  He’s a royal pain in everyone’s ass but he’s so fun to make fun of.  And his wealthy absentee father makes for a great almost weekly party.  There's generally an open at Lotor's house but there's always a lot of people on Friday especially.  They’re not the great partiers of the school, especially because they're just sophomores, but they’re generally well liked by everyone, especially because of all the older siblings, and also Hunk.  Because he's on council, he's helped out almost everyone, and everyone, especially Ezor, just adores Hunk.  Hunk truly gets invites on his own right, Ezor always invites him to Lotor’s functions and the whole gymnastics team always drunkenly fawn over him.  Lance and Pidge tag along and they have a nice bong so no one questions them.  

They’ve slipped into a kind of routine at Lotor’s house.  He’s an elf so his parties are really weird and cult like, but always fun and unlike what the old fairytales said, you actually get to return home at the end of the night.  So, he has this giant pool with a great waterfall and everything, and next to it is a dazzling jacuzzi.  One time Lotor forgot to turn the jacuzzi light on and since the area around it isn’t all that well lit, about fourteen kids fell into the jacuzzi.  Lucky for Pidge and Lance, they were seated right across the pool and got to watch as one poor drunk bastard after the next fell into the hot tub.  After that first fateful night, every time they make an appearance, they take to discreetly walking into the house just to turn off the jacuzzi light, then setting up shop across the pool with snacks and weed and watching the show.  

Today they were doing what they’ve been doing since freshman year, but Acxa was being weird about it.  She’s a water nymph which makes her territorial so it would make sense she wouldn’t like that they’re disrespecting the house and the water, but she literally has never had a problem with it before.  

“Acxa why’re you being a buzzkill right now, you’ve literally never had a problem with this.  In fact, you’ve literally sat with us and watched this show before, what is going on?”  Pidge said after Ezor huffed and made a passive aggressive scene for like the tenth time that hour.  

 

She took that as an invitation to sit with them.  She wasn’t usually this forward, like, they hung out a lot, but they weren't particularly close and in general, she was kind of a closed off person so they just took it in stride, but they could tell she was being out of character acting all huffy, it was suspicious anything was bothering her.

 

“I’m sober.”  

 

Lance choked, he did not think he would ever hear those words come out of her mouth.  She was always on xan, that was her thing, come to think of it he doesn’t remember a time they’d talked she was sober.  

 

“Oh, uh, congratulations?”  He stuttered.  

 

“Not like that, you idiot.  My mom went through my room, threw out everything.  I kept an eightball in my locker, thought it would get me through the weekend but Lotor fucking just helped himself.  He said he called his dealer to repay me tonight, but she’s a dealer so we just don’t even know if she’s gonna show.”  

“That’s rough, man, want a hit?”  Pidge at her peak compassionate.  

 

“God I knew there was a reason we kept you guys around, yes.”  

  


* * *

 

 

When Acxa left, his general thoughts about that conversation were _that was really weird but so is everyone at this school I don’t even care anymore_ not, _this is going to have a very serious, immediate consequence for you and your closest friends_.  

 

Yet lo and behold, half an hour later as quite the shock to everyone, the drug dealer showed up and on time, and with her little brother in tow.  If she hadn’t been wearing a hoodie and a backpack, the secret uniform of dealers, she would have broken every single rule of drug dealing.  Keith lent her a hand she daintily accepted as she climbed onto a table and shouted as loud as possible.  

 

“Lotor!  Come get your crack!”  

 

Most the people at the party just laughed it off, Lotor was too rich to be a crack addict.  Lotor was too coked out, so while he usually would have bristled at the insinuation, he just went with it, hollering back a, “Welcome to the party Miss Blair Last Name Redacted!” and they went inside briefly, followed by Acxa to complete the transaction.  

 

While she had come with Allura and Shiro in tow, they left Keith to get drinks.  Awkward and out of place, he decided to light a cigarette to pass the time.  Once it was lit, he looked up at the pool and saw Lance and Pidge with their giant bong, he quickly averted his eyes in the opposite direction and saw a group of girls fawning over Hunk, so he was left with just looking up.  He muttered an expletive to himself, then just kept smoking because the situation just did not have a solution.  

 

The three of them didn’t feel any less awkward than Keith.  As soon as Blair shouted "crack", Lance was already reaching for the bong, so Pidge was left to just polishing off her drink and they just had been silently given each other meaningful looks after each subsequent action took place.  Hunk had been completely quiet since the Koganes walked in but when his friends kept asking him what was wrong he would brush them off, trying to make eye contact with Lance or Pidge.  

 

Eventually it was Lance who was bravest and walked up to Keith.  

 

“You shouldn’t be smoking those.”  

 

“That’s pretty rich coming from you I’ve been here for a total of five minutes and have watched you snap like three bowls,”  

 

“You’ve been watching me snap bowls?-- No, I’m not even going to entertain this.  Two years with radio silence ends with you calling me a hypocrite, really Keith?”  

 

“Two years and the first words you tell me are a criticism.”  

 

“I said it in a _looking out for you_ kind of way!  Not the _criticising you_ kind of way.”  

 

“Okay so the second thing you tell me is you call me a liar?  You’re the giant liar, you looked right disgusted when you said that, you’re the most judgemental person I’ve ever met, so just shut up, Lance.”  

 

Eventually a crowd was noticing their argument and slowly they all got more and more invested.  

 

“Fuck you, Keith.  If I wanted to criticize you in a judgemental way I would have said that cigarettes are a trash habit for trash people with trash lungs and trash breath, you trash--”

 

Some dick from the basketball team started chanting “Fight! Fight! Fight!” then a few other people joined in and Keith and Lance realized they were fucked.  They didn’t want to punch each other, they were best friends and their relationship was way too fragile to withstand physical blows thrown at it.  They just hesitated awkwardly, Keith never uncrossing his arms, Lance mirroring him, but giving a killer glare.  

 

Some other asshole from the basketball team yelled, “Yeah, Punch him, dude version of Blair!”  

 

It had been a month of school, not everyone knew his name yet.  

 

As if summoned, her name being yelled and all, and because she could sense when Keith was in trouble, somehow, Blair came barreling out of Lotor’s house, straight to the commotion.  She immediately diffused the situation by punching Rolo right in the face.  

 

The crowd was satisfied with a Rollo and Blair standoff.  They were quite popular at the end of sophomore year, and during the summer before junior year so it felt a bit like a reunion.  What it accomplished is it completely took the attention off her frantic little brother, and she watched as Shiro grabbed him and started walking him to the car, and Allura pushed through the crowd to grab Blair to leave.  

 

“Thank you for having us Lotor, we will be going now, lovely party, see you at school!”  Allura diffused to the upset of the crowd.  Blair was pretending to want Allura off her back to keep fighting Rolo but they both knew it was a front.  Even Rolo, while completely caught off guard by her impromptu fist in his face wasn’t that surprised, and not even actually angry.  Sometimes the situation calls for a fight, none of them were that bothered by it.  Blair was a loose canon, these things happen sometimes.  

 

* * *

 

“So, how’d you enjoy your first high school party.”  The car ride was already olympic levels of awkward, Shiro had to pull a dad and ask the corniest question in existence.

 

It worked, somehow.  Allura and Blair were already fighting back their laughter, but as soon as Keith uncharacteristically cracked they all lost it.  Keith actually burst out laughing, something he hadn’t done in years.  It was nice and they were all grateful that they had Shiro.  He was a square, but he was the one driving their asses around town and making them feel better about their problems.  Eventually Keith wiped a tear they all pretended to ignore because sure it was a genuine, not crazy induced laugh, but it was also self deprecating as all hell.  

 

“Oh my god, that was _so_ bad.”  Keith said into his palms.  Allura was sitting in the back with him so she rubbed circles on his back, nodding as he continued, “Like, I truly don’t think it could have gone worse.  Tonight was like if Murphy’s Law decided to be my Friday night instead of a concept.”  

 

“Calm down dramaqueen.”  Blair said from the front seat.  “You’re gonna make it rain, it can always get worse.  But mark my words kid,”  She turns around and starts wagging a finger dramatically at her little brother, “it’s never as bad or as good as it seems.”  

 

Before the car can get sweeped by how ominous but correct that statement was, Shiro saves the moment, yet again.  He, in true dad fashion, makes eye contact with Keith through the mirror and says, “Look, Keith, tonight sucked for you.  But it will get better.  Tomorrow it will be a little bit better, in a week you’ll feel much better, and soon enough something else is gonna suck and make you forget all about tonight.  It’s not like we live in a perfect world, but it always gets better with time.”  

 

“Shiro you passed the IHOP it’s off Romaine street.”  Allura directed from her phone screen.  

 

They had a tradition of ending the night at the IHOP by Allura’s house, it wasn’t too late but the party had been too much to ask Keith to stop by Coran’s new art exhibit, too.  Shiro had practice in the morning, so after IHOP he dropped them all off at Allura’s house and went home.  

 

They were staying with Allura and while Blair prefered to not ask for anything, she felt less bad asking to crash at Allura’s because her mom and dad were loaded, like, they were literal royalty, so they had the space, and they were all so nice about it all the time.  

 

As soon as they got back Keith went to the guest room he always stayed in and announced he was gonna pass the fuck out (or PTFO as he was beginning to say, at first ironically but now the lines were ambiguous).  

 

There were more guest rooms but Blair had been sleeping over at Allura’s house since they were in elementary school and she had always slept on the couch in Allura’s room so she continued to do that.  She was lying down while Allura went through a meticulous night regime.  Well, Blair thought it was meticulous but it was actually just taking off makeup, washing her face, and putting moisturizer on but it was way more than Blair ever bothered to do.  

 

“Bro, I don’t know what to do about this Keith situation.”  

 

“I think you handled that perfectly.  That was not even meant sarcastically, starting a fight with Rolo was a perfect diplomatic move.”  

 

“Punching Rolo is always the move.”  

 

Allura laughed, she didn’t agree but Blair was unintentionally hilarious.  

 

“And I don’t think you have to do anything about this Keith situation, everything is a Keith situation for you, this is for once something you don’t have to work out for him.”  

 

“What do you mean?”  Blair sits up from the couch, eager to gossip and hear Allura’s take on what happened.  

 

“Well it’s not really a Keith thing, it’s a Lance thing.  Because, look, you have real life Keith things.  That’s a trademark thing in your life that you have the unfortunate responsibility of having to deal with all the time even though it shouldn’t be that way, but for once in your life this is actually just normal, teenage, high school drama.”  

 

“I mean, but it’s because of my shit that he feels he can’t talk to them.”  

 

“That’s Keith’s way of dealing with things.  You have to be there to fix his problems when it comes to his real problems like making sure he has a roof over his head, and food, and that he’s going to school and passing his classes, and you do that.  You do that in an illegal way but you do it in the way that makes the most sense for you.  You’re not also his therapist.”  

 

“But I have to make sure he’s like, emotionally okay, too.  Like, he’s clearly upset about, you know, the whole _parental_ thing,”  She wouldn’t ever say outloud and outright that their parents abandoned them, but she has to talk around it sometimes.  “He never had problems with his friends before and then he just wouldn’t talk for like a year.  He's talking a lot more, he's like a little social butterfly now, have you noticed?  But he just won't talk to his old friends and I mean, I liked the little squirts.  I can't imagine how much he misses them, I know he does.”  

 

“And that talking problem was a real Keith issue.  When he didn’t talk you made him go to the counselors and you paid for that and overall made that happen.  This fighting after ghosting friends?  That’s normal.  And it’s a normal sister thing to want to fix it but I’m telling you that you don’t have to.”  

 

“So you’re saying I don’t _have_ to, but…”  

 

“I’m saying nothing because if I say you shouldn’t meddle you’re just going to immediately meddle.”  

 

“True, I think I need more intel.  I have a feeling there’s something going on with Lance, too.  I’m mad I missed what they were saying,”  

 

Allura was through and through a gossip.  Once she went through her friend duty of making sure Blair knew she didn’t need to expend energy on this if she didn’t have the time, she was all in.  

 

“So you’re going to need intel?”  

 

“Sounds like it.”  

 

“Anything besides that?”  

 

“I’m going to call suzy.”  Allura drops her eye serum dramatically.  

 

“You can’t be serious.”  

 

“Oh yes I am.”  

 

“Suzy McClaine-Sanchez?”  

 

“Do I look like I associate with more than one Suzy?  Yes of course that Suzy.”  

 

“Please, God, don’t do this.”  

 

“You know it’s the move though, right?”  

 

“Why her?  Why not one of the other dozen McClain-Sanchez’s milling about the school.”  

 

“Allura, you know why.”  

 

* * *

 

The girls had not been kidding when they said they would need hours to get ready for the rave.  Keith had decided to not go.  Monday he was feeling adventurous and told his sister and Allura he might go.  A rave sounded like something on his bucketlist of things to do before he died but he lived in the city that was universally recognized as the cradle of supernatural activity, as the most diverse location on Earth, there would be more pixie raves to attend if he wanted to.  And while partying on drugs was more his speed nowadays, apparently, raves consisted of more dancing and letting loose than he was in the mood for right now, and pixie dust on the wrong mindset wasn’t the move.  

Instead, he sleeps until four pm which is oddly common for him these days, eats some kind of depression meal, ceremonially mows the lawn to get on Allura’s parents’ good side which he already is more than on, and it is even more ridiculous because they have a biweekly gardener anyway.  But he feels good about doing a chore so after he feel like doing the most productive thing he can do and he texts Shiro.

 

He picks Keith up and says they can go to his house, do homework or go to the gym, but as soon as they step foot in his house his mom makes a fuss about family dinner.  Keith amazingly does not laugh when his parents make them say grace before eating and he already had like eight pieces of toast before he mowed the lawn today but he’s been ravenous lately.  Mrs. Takashi made some kind of delicious smelling and tasting stew and Keith never says no to a home cooked meal as a strict rule.  

 

After, Shiro and Keith make a noble attempt at homework but after staring at the same trig question for fifteen minutes, Keith randomly asks if he wants to play some smash and Shiro jumps out of his chair before Keith can even finish the question, both racing to the tv.  

 

At one point Shiro’s little cousin comes into the room.  She was staying with them for a bit because his aunt is at a conference, she’s two years old and adorable, but because she lives across the country they don’t get to see her very often.  So, Shiro and his mom of course jumped at the opportunity to babysit.  She sits in his lap while he adjusts the controller to be in front of her, and continues to play.  She’s so mesmerized by the pretty shapes and colors on screen and the funny sounds she starts turning different colors.  Everytime a sound effect makes her laugh she shifts.  

 

Keith is briefly reminded of how much he used to like when he’d go to Lance’s house and his little siblings were always so cute, even and sometimes especially when they annoyed the shit out of Lance.  

 

“I miss Miles.”  

 

Shiro pauses the game immediately.  He’s emotionally intelligent enough to know there’s a lot to unpack with that statement.  Shiro’s the kind of guy that even a stranger would be like yeah I can trust that guy with my newborn baby.  But Keith was paranoid by nature and deeply closed off and it meant something that he was telling Shiro that he was having this kind of upsetting feeling.  

 

“Miles?  As in?”  

 

“Miles McClain Sanchez.”  Keith says in a quieter voice, “Lance’s three year old brother.”  

 

“Have you seen him since you returned?”  

 

“Nope.”  Keith bites his lip before continuing.  “Last time I saw him he was only starting to walk.  Now he probably speaks in full sentences and everything and he never remembered meeting me.”  

 

Keith curls into himself, wrapping his arms around his legs and leaning his head on his knees.  Ella looks up at Shiro questioningly, he whispers something into her ear and after a minute of Keith not looking back up she clumsily walks over to Keith, picks up his head with her tiny hands and tells him.  

 

“Don’t be sad.”  She says it so sternly and seriously Keith smiles and nods.  

 

“Thank you, Ella.  I’m not sad, not when you’re around.”  He proceeds to tickle her and then she’s shrieking and giggling and he doesn’t have to confront the pile of toxic waste he just dumped on Shiro.  

 

* * *

 

Later, once Ella is put to bed and his parents, sleepily watching Saturday Night Live wave him off saying he’s free to leave as long as he comes back with enough time to wake up for church they get into his car.  It’s only nine so the girls haven’t left Alluras house and they promised they’d come by.  They obviously just wanted them there so they could flaunt their amazing outfits for the night, probably act as photographers.  

 

Shiro takes the long way to Allura’s house.  Well, not the long way so much as he drove around a loop that encompassed the district four times before settling in to driving to actually her house, to talk to Keith.  

 

“Whatever it is that you did, from what I gather it’s just that you didn’t talk to them for two years, but even if you kicked their puppy I promise you if you ask them to, they will absolutely forgive you.”  

 

There was a terrible pregnant moment’s pause.  

 

“You’re right.  Hunk and Pidge will forgive me, Lance will probably never.”  

 

“You’re crazy, Keith.  Lance wants to be your friend again probably more than Hunk and Pidge.”  

 

Keith wasn’t so sure.  It was a total mess between them.  

 

“It’s a total mess right now but I’m not kidding about that puppy.  You probably could have murdered that puppy and they would still forgive you.  You know, not immediately but eventually.  You guys have been best friends since you were five, it’s been a rough few years and I wish you would see that they will totally understand.”  

 

“Maybe, but they’re also really judgemental and I can’t… I just can’t get rejected by them.  That would be full on Murphy’s law.”  

 

“You need to drop the Murphy’s law thing, bro.  Like, look.  On Friday you want to know what Acxa was texting me about earlier?  How much she likes Lance and Pidge.”  

 

“Awesome, they’re friends with Acxa now but not me.”  

 

“Let me finish, damn.  So, she was like embarrassed, she knows I know them pretty well and she asked me to apologize to them because she went up to them after yelling at them about a light bulb, told them about a fight with her mom, on top of that she says she was acting weird from withdrawals and complained about it to them and they just were like, that sucks bro, you want some weed?”  

 

Shiro was hoping for some kind of response from Keith, an understanding of what the story implies but since Keith wasn’t giving him anything he continued.  

 

“All three of those people get along with everyone because they don’t reserve judgement, they just roll with it.  So when they’re mad it’s literally only out of love.”  

 

“He was yelling at me about the cigs and shit.”  

 

“But that’s still love there.  Like, Acxa was complaining about bars, Blair was yelling about crack, it didn’t phase them, it’s not about judging substance abuse, it’s about trying to get a rise out of you because they want you to talk to them.”  

 

“So you’re saying they were being hypocritical to get a rise out of me?  It’s not that much better.”  

 

“Dude, stop being difficult.  You know what it means.  It means they miss you.  And on top of that, you know who else is the biggest freakin hypocrite in the world?”  

 

“Who?”  

 

“Your sister.  Your sister has yelled at you countless times for smoking while she does god knows what with god knows who.  She quite clearly doesn’t have an issue with substances, she has a problem with you doing something risky.  Lance tells you to stop smoking it’s still out of love.  

 

“And I’m gonna be honest, it’s not just Lance, Pidge follows the same pattern.  Pidge tells you that you look like you work at Hot Topic it’s cause friends don’t let friends look like they work at Hot Topic.”  

 

That earns a snort from Keith.  

 

“Yeah she is a hypocrite, she started wearing two buns in her hair now, that’s a Hot Topic employee move.”  

 

“My point precisely.”  

 

Keith actually feels better after talking to Shiro.  After entering Allura’s house, it was nothing but dealing with the eight screaming girls that wanted pictures and validation of their attire and it was actually funny to do.  The girls left at ten and Shiro offered to do something with Keith after, but he yawned when he said it so Keith laughed and told him he should go to bed early for church and all that.  Keith talked with Allura’s parents for a bit then PTFO’d and was shocked that he did so for the first time in months before 12 am.  

  


* * *

 

Intel, at first, does not go according to plan.  During third period on Monday morning, Blair kidnaps one of the smaller looking gymnast that was at the party.  She puts a bag over her head, carries her to the closest girls’ bathroom that is kind of recognized as her office, whips the sack off and demands to know everything that happened that night.  

 

Unfortunately the girl is a freshman, does not know Blair, or the school that well, and is way too scared to remember a thing.  

 

“Where were you the night of the 11th at 11:45pm?”  

 

“I-- don’t know I’m new.”  

 

“How does that correlate at all?”  

 

“I-I-I don’t know, I’m scared, I’m new here, what do you want?  I-I-I’ll give you my lunch, I can’t remember what I packed but I’m usually good at packing lunches.”  

 

Blair eases off.  

 

“Jesus, kid.  Calm down.”  Blair hands the freshman her waterbottle.  She takes a sip then immediately spits it out.  

 

“Was that _alcohol_?”  

 

“What the fuck else would it have been.”  

 

“Water!  Water, you crazy bitch!  God, you are the _worst_ bully I have ever seen, what the hell is going on?”  She of course starts to cry and Blair is as annoyed as she is dumbfounded.  

 

“Alright this has been supremely unhelpful, if you didn’t want the whiskey you could have said it, but I respect the power move of taking a sip just to spit it right back out.  So, see you around squirt, don’t tell anyone else this happened and good luck at the tournament Friday.”  

 

She immediately Facetimed Allura.  She knew she had a free period so she’d pick up.  

 

“Hey, where are you?  I need help with recon, and maybe damage control.”  

 

“Blair, why did Ally Jun just tweet ‘omg just got kidnapped, threatened, and poisoned by an insane girl’?  I saw it and immediately knew it was you, Blair!  That poor girl.  You know her father sits on the mining council?”  

 

“Well then her mother has some explaining to do, no way is that girl’s father a dwarf, but whatever.  Witness unreliability is a well known fact, too much adrenaline.  Will you just play good cop with Ezor or something?  I’m gonna bounce but I’d like to get more deets before calling S, you know?”   

 

“Don’t call her that, I’ll see what I can do.  I’m getting a call from Shiro now so stay out of trouble, I love you, bye.”  

**Author's Note:**

> front -- a front's like what you call a drug operation that uses a business to hide their drug expenses as legitimate for banking and such.  
> barred out -- when someone takes a lot of bars, they're like calm but also kind of zombie like. Think Kristen Stewart like whatever nothing bothers me I'm just calm but depressed.  
> bars-- xanax  
> xan-- xanax obviously  
> coke run -- someone who does a lot of cocaine. Like President George W. Bush.  
> rave -- it's kind of like a concert. The DJ is always of the tech/electro/house/dubstep variety, whatever you want to call it. There's a light show, and everyone is in like neon colors if they're fun, and everyone is rolling.  
> rolling -- very high on drugs, usually ecstasy like Molly or something but I thought it would be funny to be like oh Pixie Dust, that's like a drug, so pixies would through awesome ass raves.  
> chain smoking -- i think this is universal but it's just smoking cigarettes, like tobacco, not weed. I use the distinction because if I just say smoking I could be talking about weed so watch out for the distinction.  
> crack lighter -- what Keith said.  
> dayger -- a day rager. No one actually says this unironically but it's just a party during the day.  
> run -- I use this to mean a drug run like a drug deal, like a single drug deal transaction thing.  
> open -- in high school this was like when there wasn't a party but the parents weren't home so people would come over and smoke weed or drink or do other drugs. Not a full ass party, kind of just a lowkey hangout with some people.  
> swoop -- pick someone up from their house from the car so you don't have to do something intolerable like ringing the doorbell and talking to a family member or something awful.  
> eightball -- an 3.5 grams (1/8 of an ounce) of coke (it can be meth and other weird shit but i usually hear it as coke, probably because I don't hang out w a lot of meth heads)  
> coked out -- when you have a lot of coke, lol. I.E. George W Bush was coked out at his inauguration party.  
> snap a bowl -- when you inhale an entire bowl from a bong in one go.


End file.
